Medical marijuana push: South Florida takes center stage

Irvin Rosenfeld, a Fort Lauderdale stockbroker, has one of only four federal… (Mike Stocker, Sun Sentinel )

March 23, 2013|By Nicole Brochu, Sun Sentinel

Just a year ago, you'd be high to think medical marijuana had any hope of ever passing muster with Florida's conservative Legislature.

But a colorful cadre of pot proponents from South Florida are bucking conventional wisdom, challenging party loyalties and — riding a wave of reefer madness sweeping some U.S. states — getting some unexpected results.

"When we came to Tallahassee this year [for the spring legislative session], the conversation abruptly changed from 'never going to happen' to 'when it happens,'" said Jodi James, executive director of the Florida Cannabis Action Network, a Melbourne-based nonprofit pushing to reform the state's marijuana laws. "That wouldn't have happened without South Florida."

Don't expect medical marijuana to be legalized this year. Seismic shifts don't come so soon. But after years of stagnation, cannabis advocates see something they hardly recognize on the horizon: life.

The two Democrats floating pro-medical marijuana bills in the state House and Senate are from Plantation and Lake Worth.

The 70-year-old former drug smuggler who launched a "Silver Tour" to recruit Florida's powerful senior voting bloc to the medical marijuana bandwagon hails from West Palm Beach.

The new head of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws is a longtime activist and unapologetic pot smoker who has practiced law in Fort Lauderdale since 1976.

And another of the effort's most recognizable faces, a Fort Lauderdale stockbroker, is one of only four people in the country who have been prescribed medical marijuana by the federal government as part of a now-defunct program.

"South Florida is the most liberal part of the state," said Robert Platshorn, the father of the Silver Tour and its 30-minute infomercial, "Should Grandma Smoke Pot?" So it makes sense, he said, that it would be leading a considerably liberal movement.

But for too long, Platshorn said, the movement has suffered from a lack of serious funding, adding thatNational Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws officials long refused to spend money in Florida, choosing states where the political prospects were more promising.

The game has since changed, with last week's announcement that prominent Orlando attorney and Democratic fundraising heavyweight John Morgan will lead a statewide effort to pass a constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana.

"Now that John Morgan has come into the fight, people with real money, that's never happened. I think Republicans will wake up and pay a lot more attention now that big players are involved," Platshorn said. "One way or another, it'll be on the ballot in 2014."

Others are more tempered, and prepared for a long slog.

"I've always viewed this as a long-term project," said Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, who is going for his third bite at the legislative apple, after two previous bills he filed as a state representative were deemed dead almost on arrival.

This year's proposal — modeled after laws in New Jersey and Colorado and sponsored in the House by Rep. Katie Edwards, D-Plantation — would allow patients with specified medical conditions and under a doctor's care to possess 4 ounces of dried cannabis or eight marijuana plants. Clemens is optimistic it'll at least get an airing in committee this year.

"Attitudes are changing more and more every year," Clemens said. "And we're seeing that in the polling."

One poll in particular is being bandied about with vigor. In late February, as lawmakers prepared to converge on Tallahassee for the 2013 legislative session, People United for Medical Marijuana, a PAC pushing for a 2014 ballot referendum, released a poll showing 70 percent of Floridians support legalizing medicinal pot for qualified patients.

The growing public acceptance — among Floridians of all political stripes and demographics, but largely Democrats in South Florida — comes amid a budding national movement. Medical marijuana is now legal in 18 U.S. statesand Washington, D.C., and Colorado and Washington state legalized its recreational use in November.

"So many people have come to realize that, first and foremost, this is medicine," James said. "Colorado and Washington discovered that, once they controlled it and regulated it, the sky didn't fall and public safety actually increased."

There are plenty who dispute those assertions — law enforcement officials, anti-drug coalitions and parent groups among them — and their political heft and conviction mean pro-pot proponents still face an uphill battle.

"At this point, it doesn't appear they have enough substantiated research to classify [marijuana] as a medicine," said Danielle Branciforte, Florida coordinator for the organization, Students Against Destructive Decisions, echoing the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's position.